Friday, June 30, 2017

After
months of legal wrangling, the U.S. travel ban on persons from Syria, Iran, Sudan,
Libya, Yemen and Somalia will be implemented in an effort to "protect the
homeland". A
study by Alex Nowrastehat
the CATO Institute takes a statistical look at terrorism and immigration,
looking at the role that foreign-born terrorists have played in terrorist attacks on
U.S. soil. Here is a summary of the study's findings, looking at the data
between the years 1975 and 2015 for terrorist attacks on the United States.

1.)
The number of foreign-born convicted terrorists - Over the aforementioned
timeframe, there were 154 foreign-born terrorists convicted of terrorism in the
United States. Of these, 54 were lawful permanent residents, 34 were
tourists on various visas (including 18 of the 19 hijackers on September 11,
2001), 20 were refugees, 19 were students, 4 were asylum seekers, 3 were from
Visa Waiver Program countries, 1 entered the U.S. on a K-1 fiancee visa and the
visas for the remaining 9 terrorists could not be determined.

Here
is a graphic showing the visa category for all foreign-born terrorists:

It
is important to keep in mind that, of the 154 convicted foreign-born
terrorists, only 40 murdered someone in a terrorist attack with the remainder of the attacks being foiled before they took place, a number that drops
to 21 if the attackers on September 2001 are excluded.

2.)
The number of victims of foreign-born convicted terrorists - Over the
aforementioned timeframe, the 154 foreign-born terrorists killed 3,024 persons.
While this does sound like a large number, 98.6 percent of those 3,024
victims were killed on September 11, 2001. The remaining 1.4 percent were
dispersed over the four decade period with spikes in 1993 due to the World
Trade Center bombing (6 victims) and the two terrorist attacks in 2015 which
killed 5 people in Chattanooga and 14 people in San Bernardino. Here is a
graphic showing the number of successful terrorists and murders in terrorist
attacks for the period before, on and after 9/11:

3.)
The annual odds of being killed by a foreign-born terrorist - Over the
aforementioned timeframe, the annual chance that an American would be
killed in a terrorist attack committed by a foreign-born terrorist was 1 in
3,609,709. The chance that an American would be killed in a terrorist
attack committed by a refugee was 1 in 3.64 billion. Of the 768,000
murders committed in the United States between 1975 and the end of 2015, only
0.39 percent were committed by foreign-born terrorists in a terrorist attack.
The annual chance of being murdered in the United States was 252.9 times
greater than dying in an attack by a foreign-born terrorist on U.S. soil.

Excluding
the attacks of September 2001, each successful terrorist killed an average of
just under two victims. Over the four decade period and excluding the
September 2001 attack, the 21 foreign-born convicted terrorists murdered 41
people.

Let's
close this posting with a look at the terrorism risk for all visa categories.
Over the four decade period from 1975 to 2015, the United States
government issued 1.14 billion visas under the categories exported by the 154
foreign-born terrorists as noted above. Of the billion plus visas issued,
one foreign-born terrorist entered the United States for every 7.38 million non-terrorist foreigners who did so. This means that only 0.0000136 percent
of visas were actually granted to terrorists. If the 9/11 attacks are excluded
from the statistics, one foreign-born terrorist entered the United States for
every 8.48 million visas granted meaning that only 0.00001 percent of visas
issued were issued to terrorists.

While
terrorist attacks are, by their very nature, terrorizing, this data shows us
how the government can use fear of immigrants, particularly from certain Muslim
countries, to manipulate public sentiment toward the implementation of
restrictive laws. The implementation of immigration bans as well as broad
snooping powers has received a measure of public acceptance in the United
States largely because of the fear generated by a single, anomalous attack that
has seared itself into the public and political consciousness.

Thursday, June 29, 2017

Aninteresting polldone by the Pew Research Center takes
an international look at confidence in the Trump presidency, comparing it to
the level of confidence in the U.S. presidency at the end of the Obama Administration.
Here is a summary of their findings.

The
Pew poll, the Spring 2017 Global Attitudes Survey, generally questioned between
1000 and 1500 people in 37 nations around the world with a total of 40,447
respondents between February 16, 2017 and May 8, 2017.. The poll looked
at several key issues; the favourability of Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin,
Angela Merkel and Zi Jinping, the favourability of the United States and the
favourability of the Trump Administration's policies.

Let's
start by looking at the global confidence in Donald Trump and his ability to do
the "right thing" when it comes to global affairs and how this
confidence/lack of confidence has changed from the end of the Obama
Administration:

As
you can see, globally speaking, there is a significant growth in the number of
international respondents who do not trust the new U.S. president when it
comes to global affairs.

Here
is a graphic showing a comparison of how each nation in the survey views the
Trump Administration vs. the Obama Administration when it comes to confidence
in handling global affairs:

Respondents
from only two nations out of 37 had more confidence in Donald Trump's ability
to conduct international affairs than they did at the end Barack Obama's terms;
Russia and Israel, an interesting turn of events given the anti-Russia
sentiment that is currently pervasive in Washington. It is
interesting to observe that some of America's longest-term allies like Germany,
South Korea, France, Canada and the United Kingdom have the highest declines in
confidence from one administration to the next. This is particularly
important for Canada, America's next-door neighbour and its major trading
partner.

Let's now
look at how the international approval rating for Donald Trump compares to that
of China's Xi Jinping, Germany's Angela Merkel and Russia's Vladimir Putin when
it comes to global affairs:

As
you can see, globally speaking, Donald Trump gets the most negative responses
when it comes to confidence in his global affairs agenda. While his low
level of confidence is only slightly lower than that of Vladimir Putin (5
percentage points) and Xi Jinping (6 percentage points), the number of
respondents that have no confidence in his global affairs agenda are far higher
than either Mr. Putin (15 percentage points lower) and Mr. Jinping (19
percentage points lower).

Let's
close by looking at a global view of Donald Trump's personal character.
Here is a listing of both positive and negative characteristics and what
percentage of respondents feel that each characteristic is most closely
associated with Mr. Trump:

It
is very interesting to see that a majority (55 percent) of respondents felt
that Donald Trump was a strong leader. Unfortunately, these are
outweighed by the number of respondents who feel that his is dangerous,
intolerant and arrogant.

Obviously,
the international community's views on the current Trump Administration will
have a significant impact on how outsiders view the United States. Only
time will tell whether Donald Trump will be able to turn around international
sentiment about his presidency; my suspicion is that he really could care less
what the international community and its leaders feel about his agenda or his
personality for that matter. That said, it is still interesting to see
how the international community views the first few months of his term in the
Oval Office, particularly when we compare it to the final days of the Obama
Administration.

Subscribe To

About Me

I have been an avid follower of the world's political and economic scene since the great gold rush of 1979 - 1980 when it seemed that the world's economic system was on the verge of collapse. I am most concerned about the mounting level of government debt and the lack of political will to solve the problem. Actions need to be taken sooner rather than later when demographic issues will make solutions far more difficult. As a geoscientist, I am also concerned about the world's energy future; as we reach peak cheap oil, we need to find viable long-term solutions to what will ultimately become a supply-demand imbalance.